LogFAQs > #952552204

Everyone in the house needs to know - why did we listen to Mother for so long and stay cooped up in the room? He hears the echoes of the rest of the family, playing out their pleasant facade in the great hall. Record-scratch moment as Michel enters the room. Aimee loudly protests, that if she knew Michel had always been a boy, she would not have treated him the way she did. Michel calls her a wh o re and suggests she find comfort in Didier's arms. Georges is confused, and everything falls into chaos.

Mother Lydie explains that Michel is cursed, that she gave birth to a daughter. She keeps insisting that Michelle is her daughter, and Michel throws off the bedsheet he had been wearing, asking Mother to open her eyes and see who he truly is. You're not a boy, or a girl... Aimee calls you an abomination... Is Michel intersex? Aimee says 'there's nothing there'.

Mother locks Michel away, writing letters to him instead of visiting, insisting on the use of a girl voice and Michel signs all the responses 'Michelle'. This is heartbreaking. One day, Michel requests that a servant bringing a meal tell their gender. When they say male, he demands that the person disrobe. Then, and only then, does Michel see the key difference. Feeling the judgement and revulsion of the person, Michel attacks. Several servants have to stop him, but they successfully shut him up in the room again. The servants stop coming. Michel spends several days without water. Don't you die after 3?

Aimee finally opens the door and bringing food and water to Michel. She cruelly reminds Michel that no one likes them after the episode, and drops a glass of water on the floor, demanding that Michel sop up the water from the carpet. She laughs at Michel's pitiful state. Abuse of all kinds follows, Aimee claiming that Michel doesn't have a friend in the world. Michel wants to kill her. He bites her hand, and she mercilessly kicks the living daylights out of him. Aimee thinks herself weak, so she doesn't know when to stop.

We get a flashback to happier times when "Michelle" would spend time with her brothers. Michel wonders if those times can ever return.

Aimee continues her campaign of brutal abuse - since it's tied to mealtime, there's no way Michel can avoid it. Eventually, Aimee grows bored and starts having the servants deliver meals again. Michel can't track the passage of time, he screams and cries and tears at his hair and body. Servants outside the door hear and whisper about how 'poor Michelle has lost her mind'. What an awful circumstance.

One day, the brothers bang on Michel's door. They advise of a carriage that can bring Michel to safety, as Father wants him executed. They explain that once Georges takes over the estate, Michel can be restored properly as a Bollinger. But it can't happen now. There is another property owned by the family that is abandoned and no buyers are interested. They speak of the witch, but dismiss the idea as hearsay. It's the only way to keep Michel safe.

Didier reaches the familiar agreement from earlier - provisions once a month, and something to pass the time. Anything Michel wants, he will do his best to get. He requests Didier's chess set and some modest art supplies from Georges. Didier asks Michel to avoid making contact with people who don't already know about him. Didier says it was Mother's idea to do this. She will be the only other one who knows that Michel is alive. Honestly, if it wasn't her idea, it would be a terrible idea to tell her. Moms are always emotionally compromised, even if they're not the first to break when questioned.

I have to say, I like the way the pencil portraits slide in, it shakes up the otherwise static appearance of these parts of the game.

So it seems Aimee lied to everyone - saying Michel wouldn't let the servants in, and that he wouldn't eat unless she was present. For six months. Michel exclaims at the ridiculous tale, but doesn't clarify because he feels ashamed. It pains me to know how clueless Georges is in the presence of a pretty face. It seems it took them all a while to get over the infidelity thing, but Aimee clearly made an effort, and Georges has forgiven her, and worked things out with Didier. Aimee's clearly got the wool over everyone's eyes, but Michel makes the tough call and lets it be. He doesn't want to ruin any of Georges' happiness.

Michel asks them to confirm that he is considered to be their brother, and that this won't be the last time they see each other. They confirm, and promise it won't be the last time. They sent Michel off with strong hugs.

We return to Michel and the witch Morgana. She chides him about keeping himself walled off, about experiencing Giselle's pain but sharing none of his own, by failing to acknowledge his own past, he hasn't realized why the disconnect occurs. Morgana pushes him back into his own memories...
Michel continues in the carriage. The driver brought him around, and left him there, alone with his luggage. The angel in the stained-glass window is Michael, Michel's namesake. He opens the door to the observation tower, and climbs up. He opens the burdened door, and sees Morgana's one-armed skeleton. He settles in, receiving provisions as promised, replying to Mother's letter as 'Michelle' to pacify her, even as each one begs for him to come home 'when the curse is lifted'.

He spends time with Morgana's skeleton, holding her hand and cradling her in his arms. He realizes she must have been young when she died, and in pitying her, feels he must be in a better position [the thing he says about pitying someone else disqualifying you from being pitiable is 100% false, but I'll let it slide].

A painting arrives, very clearly bearing Georges' brushstrokes. A letter from Mother, encouraging Michel to look upon the portrait of Michelle and remember who 'she' was. It was meant as a visualization, to 'help Michelle return'. Michel screams in frustration and agony as he slices up the canvas. Was it all a lie?

Morgana approaches him in only a disembodied voice, and connects herself to the one-armed skeleton in the observation tower. She offers to help Michel curse everyone. She wants him to select someone for her to draw near to the mansion, so she can kill them. Michel instead selects no one. There is no one he can bear to kill, or curse.

Morgana reminds Michel that their happiness belongs only to them - he cannot share in it. It's built on his misfortune. Even so, Michel wisely knows that he would not feel better at their suffering. Morgana continues to play Worst Therapist Ever by telling Michel that his concern for others will devour him, that his hope will abandon him, and that she and him are essentially the same. Michel can't escape her - she's always there whispering for death and destruction. This is how I feel about intrusive thoughts - they're so disturbing, so distressing, yet persistent. And if I don't take care of myself, they get a lot worse.

Michel tries to physically lash out at Morgana, and he can't - he simply ends up destroying other objects in the room.

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Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself...: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?
-Marcus Aurelius